The Virginians by William Makepeace Thackeray (top books to read txt) 📕

“Expende Hannibalem,” mutters George, with a shrug. “Our Hannibal weighs no trifle.”

“I don't quite follow you, sir, and your Hannibal,” the Baroness remarks.

“When Mr. Wolfe and Mr. Lambert remonstrated with me as you have done, madam,” George rejoins, with a laugh, “I made this same defence which I am making to you. I said I offered to the Prince the best soldier in the family, and the two gentlemen allowed that my blunder at least had some excuse. Who knows but that they may set me right with his Royal Highness? The taste I have had of battles has shown me how little my genius inclines that way. We saw the Scotch play which everybody is talking about t'other night. And when the hero, young Norval, said how he longed to follow to the field some warlike lord, I thought to myself, 'how like my Harry is to him, except that he doth not brag.' Harry is pining now for a red coat, and if we don't mind, will take the shilling. He has the map of Germany for ever under his eyes, and follows the King of Prussia everywhere. He is not afraid of men or gods. As for me, I love my books and quiet best, and to read about battles in Homer or Lucan.”

“Then what made a soldier of you at all, my dear? And why did you not send Harry with Mr. Braddock, instead of going yourself?” asked Madame de Bernstein.

“My mother loved her younger son the best,” said George, darkly. “Besides, with the enemy invading our country, it was my duty, as the head of our family, to go on the campaign. Had I been a Scotchman twelve years ago, I should have been a——”

“Hush, sir! or I shall be more angry than ever!” said the old lady, with a perfectly pleased face.

George's explanation might thus appease Madame de Bernstein, an old woman whose principles we fear were but loose: but to the loyal heart of Sir Miles Warrington and his lady, the young man's conduct gave a severe blow indeed! “I should have thought,” her ladyship said, “from my sister Esmond Warrington's letter, that my brother's widow was a woman of good sense and judgment, and that she had educated her sons in a becoming manner. But what, Sir Miles, what, my dear Thomas Claypool, can we think of an education which has resulted so lamentably for both these young men?”

“The elder seems to know a power of Latin, though, and speaks the French and the German too. I heard him with the Hanover Envoy, at the Baroness's rout,” says Mr. Claypool. “The French he jabbered quite easy: and when he was at a loss for the High Dutch, he and the Envoy began in Latin, and talked away till all the room stared.”

“It is not language, but principles, Thomas Claypool!” exclaims the virtuous matron. “What must Mr. Warrington's principles be, when he could reject an offer made him by his Prince? Can he speak the High Dutch? So much the more ought he to have accepted his Royal Highness's condescension, and made himself useful in the campaign! Look at our son, look at Miles!”

“Hold up thy head, Miley, my boy!” says papa.

“I trust, Sir Miles, that, as a member of the House of Commons, as an English gentleman, you will attend his Royal Highness's levee to-morrow, and say, if such an offer had been made to us for that child, we would have taken it, though our boy is but ten years of age.”

“Faith, Miley, thou wouldst make a good little drummer or fifer!” says papa. “Shouldst like to be a little soldier, Miley?”

“Anything, sir, anything! a Warrington ought to be ready at any moment to have himself cut in pieces for his sovereign!” cries the matron, pointing to the boy; who, as soon as he comprehended his mother's proposal, protested against it by a loud roar, in the midst of which he was removed by Screwby. In obedience to the conjugal orders, Sir Miles went to his Royal Highness's levee the next day, and made a protest of his love and duty, which the Prince deigned to accept, saying:

“Nobody ever supposed that Sir Miles Warrington would ever refuse any place offered to him.”

A compliment gracious indeed, and repeated everywhere by Lady Warrington, as showing how implicitly the august family on the throne could rely on the loyalty of the Warringtons.

Accordingly, when this worthy couple saw George, they received him with a ghastly commiseration, such as our dear relatives or friends will sometimes extend to us when we have done something fatal or clumsy in life; when we have come badly out of our lawsuit; when we enter the room just as the company has been abusing us; when our banker has broke; or we for our sad part have had to figure in the commercial columns of the London Gazette;—when, in a word, we are guilty of some notorious fault, or blunder, or misfortune. Who does not know that face of pity? Whose dear relations have not so deplored him, not dead, but living? Not yours? Then, sir, if you have never been in scrapes; if you have never sowed a handful of wild oats or two; if you have always been fortunate, and good, and careful, and butter has never melted in your mouth, and an imprudent word has never come out of it; if you have never sinned and repented, and been a fool and been sorry—then, sir, you are a wiseacre who won't waste your time over an idle novel, and it is not de te that the fable is narrated at all.

Not that it was just on Sir Miles's part to turn upon George, and be angry with his nephew for refusing the offer of promotion made by his Royal Highness, for Sir Miles himself had agreed in George's view of pursuing quite other than a military career, and it was in respect to this plan of her son's that Madam Esmond had written from Virginia to Sir Miles Warrington. George had announced to her his intention of entering at the Temple, and qualifying himself for the magisterial and civil duties which, in the course of nature, he would be called to fulfil; nor could any one applaud his resolution more cordially than his uncle Sir Miles, who introduced George to a lawyer of reputation, under whose guidance we may fancy the young gentleman reading leisurely. Madam Esmond from home signified her approval of her son's course, fully agreeing with Sir Miles (to whom and his lady she begged to send her grateful remembrances) that the British Constitution was the envy of the world, and the proper object of every English gentleman's admiring study. The chief point to which George's mother objected was the notion that Mr. Warrington should have to sit down in the Temple dinner-ball, and cut at a shoulder of mutton, and drink small-beer out of tin pannikins, by the side of rough students who wore gowns like the parish-clerk. George's loyal younger brother shared too this repugnance. Anything was good enough for him, Harry said; he was a younger son, and prepared to rough it; but George, in a gown, and dining in a mess with three nobody's sons off dirty pewter platters! Harry never could relish this condescension on his brother's part, or fancy George in his proper place at any except the high table; and was sorry that a plan Madam Esmond hinted at in her letters was not feasible—viz., that an application should be made to the Master of the Temple, who should be informed that Mr. George Warrington was a gentleman of most noble birth,